Tokais less expensive than i thought?

guidothepimmp

Hey all,

Was at McGibbons today and saw such an array of tokai guitars, real purty guits and so well built... so I was a bit surprised to find they were actually CHEAPER instore than I have seen on gumtree and junkmail.. any ideas why?

Are they lower range tokai's? (if these even exist)?

AlanRatcliffe

Probably the Chinese made ones. Still good guitars, but the Japanese models are better and well worth the asking price. They also seem to hold their value pretty well, judging by the second-hand prices I'm seeing - which means you could probably haggle for a new Jap model and end up paying not much more than you would for a second-hand model.

guidothepimmp

aaah, didnt realise there was chinese made line.. thats probably it then.

Must say the headstocks on the teles and strats really arent great looking. Understand why they did it but man, it culd have looked better.

Anywho, I didnt play any so didnt gauge playability but yeh, the looked top notch.

singemonkey

Simple guide people. The Chinese made Tokais have a three screw truss-rod cover. The Japanese made Tokais have a two screw cover. It's the easiest way to know at a glance which you're looking at.

Bob-Dubery

singemonkey wrote: Simple guide people. The Chinese made Tokais have a three screw truss-rod cover. The Japanese made Tokais have a two screw cover. It's the easiest way to know at a glance which you're looking at.

How many screws on the truss rod cover of a MIJ Tokai "strat"?

singemonkey

Ha! Good point. I'm not sure how you easily distinguish the MIC Fender clones. In that case, it's best to make sure you know the model number of the guitar you're considering and check to see if it's MIC or MIJ.

ezietsman

Doesn't all the Japanese Tokais have 'Made in Japan' printed behind the headstock?

singemonkey

ezietsman wrote: Doesn't all the Japanese Tokais have 'Made in Japan' printed behind the headstock?

Should do, but I haven't seen the Fender clones for myself. My les paul certainly has it printed on the back of the headstock.